Discussion: During the lab my partners and I found a few problems with our lab that made us do steps over and in different ways. Things also worked out well in our lab in situations where we thought we had made a mistake. When making the soap after mixing the fatty acid with the ethyl alcohol and sodium hydroxide we had to mix it vigorously for the saponification to occur. This took longer then we where expecting and we started to doubt out mixture and methods. Right before we wee going to call it quits one of the mixtures started bubbling which is a good sign that saponification is occurring. This gave us the boost we needed to keep on stirring our mixtures and saponification happened in almost all of out mixtures. But not all of our mixtures worked. After mixing coconut oil with the ethyl alcohol and sodium hydroxide mixture we started stirring. After about four minutes we tried turning up the heat on the hot plate to hurry the process up. This did not work. After about twelve minutes we gave up on the mixture. The problem had to have happened when mixing the ethyl alcohol and the odium hydroxide because that is where we could have made a mistake. It also could have happened when we were stirring; too much heat or too little heat can through off the saponification reaction.
Because we had enough solutions to use we were fine with out making a new batch of coconut oil solution. For each solution we made two kinds, one neutralized and one crude, so we could test them side-by-side. After testing there pH levels we found out that all of the soups had a better pH reading after they where neutralized which is what we wanted. We also had a control to compare to our soaps, which was a small bar of soap we found in the boys locker-room. After neutralizing the soaps some of the because the same quality as the store bought soap.
Discussion: During the lab my partners and I found a few problems with our lab that made us do steps over and in different ways. Things also worked out well in our lab in situations where we thought we had made a mistake. When making the soap after mixing the fatty acid with the ethyl alcohol and sodium hydroxide we had to mix it vigorously for the saponification to occur. This took longer then we where expecting and we started to doubt out mixture and methods. Right before we wee going to call it quits one of the mixtures started bubbling which is a good sign that saponification is occurring. This gave us the boost we needed to keep on stirring our mixtures and saponification happened in almost all of out mixtures. But not all of our mixtures worked. After mixing coconut oil with the ethyl alcohol and sodium hydroxide mixture we started stirring. After about four minutes we tried turning up the heat on the hot plate to hurry the process up. This did not work. After about twelve minutes we gave up on the mixture. The problem had to have happened when mixing the ethyl alcohol and the odium hydroxide because that is where we could have made a mistake. It also could have happened when we were stirring; too much heat or too little heat can through off the saponification reaction.
Because we had enough solutions to use we were fine with out making a new batch of coconut oil solution. For each solution we made two kinds, one neutralized and one crude, so we could test them side-by-side. After testing there pH levels we found out that all of the soups had a better pH reading after they where neutralized which is what we wanted. We also had a control to compare to our soaps, which was a small bar of soap we found in the boys locker-room. After neutralizing the soaps some of the because the same quality as the store bought soap.
Castro oil
Shortening